Three guys walk into town. They
go into a hotel and ask for a room they can share. The clerk
has just the thing they want for thirty dollars.
The clerk sends them to the room, takes out the ledger, and realizes
that he made a mistake. The room costs only twenty-five
dollars. Now he has to divide five dollars evenly three
ways. Can't be done. So the clerk pockets two dollars,
tells the guys that he made a three dollar mistake and gives
them each a single. Now, each man paid only nine dollars
for his share of the room. Nine times three equals twenty
seven, plus the two in the clerk's pocket equals twenty
nine. Where's the other dollar?..

A man told his son that he would
give
him $1000 if he could accomplish the following task.
The father gave his son ten envelopes and a thousand dollars,
all in one dollar bills. He told his son, "Place the
money in the envelopes in such a manner that no matter what
number of dollars I ask for, you can give me one or more
of the envelopes, containing the exact amount I asked for without
having to open any of the envelopes. If you can do this,
you will keep the $1000."

When the father asked for a sum
of money, the son was able to give him envelopes containing
the exact amount of money asked for. How did the son distribute
the money among the ten envelopes?

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The contents or the ten envelopes
(in dollar bills) should be as follows: $1, 2,4, 8, 16,
32,64, 128,256, 489. The first nine numbers are in geometrical
progression, and their sum, deducted from 1,000,
gives the contents of the tenth envelope

A girl bought some pencils, erasers,
and paper clips at the stationery store. The
pencils cost ten cents each, the erasers cost five cents each,
and the clips cost two for one cent. If she bought
one hundred things altogether at a total cost of one dollar,
how many pencils, how many erasers, and how many clips
did she buy?

Nick and John were exercising
when the subject of weight came up. Nick had no problem
telling John his weight, but John said he had more "mass"
than he wanted. He wouldn't come right out and reveal his
weight; so he told Nick this riddle. " I weigh 147 pounds
plus half of my weight," he said. How much does he weigh?

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If John weighs 147 pounds plus
half of his body weight, the 147 pounds represents the
other half. John weighs 294 pounds.

Two friends decide to get together;
so they start riding bikes towards each other.
They plan to meet halfway. Each is riding at 6 MPH. They
live 36 miles apart. One of them has a pet carrier pigeon and
it starts flying the instant the friends start traveling.
The pigeon flies back and forth at 18 MPH between the
2 friends until the friends meet. How far does the
pigeon travel?

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It takes 3 hours for the friends
to meet; so the pigeon flies for 3 hours
at 18 MPH=54 miles.

Two trains are on a head on collision
course. The trains are currently 65 miles apart.
The north bound train is traveling at 55 miles per hour
and the south bound train is traveling at 80 miles per
hour. What is the distance between the trains two minutes
before they collide?

xxxxxScroll down for the answerxxxxxHere it comesxxxxx

If the trains are moving toward
each other we combine their speeds to give us their speed
basis. So: 55+80=135mph. Divide this speed by 60 minutes to
give the speed they are traveling each minute=2.25 miles/minute.
Therefore: 2 minutes before impact they are 4.5 miles apart.

When manufacturing bars of soap,
the cutting machine produces scraps. The scraps from
11 bars of soap can be made into one extra bar. What is the
total number of bars that can be made after cutting 250 bars of soap?

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Divide 250 by 11 which equals
22.8. Now when you combine the extra 8
scraps with the scraps you'll have from
the 22 bars, you'll have 30 more scraps.
They will produce 2 more bars; so the
total additional bars will be 24.

My son's school has fewer than
500 students. One-third, one- fourth, one-fifth, and one-seventh
of the total number of students are all whole numbers.
Coincidentally, their sum is exactly the total number
students who attended the school concert. How many students attended
the school concert?

------------------------------------------------------------Solution: 420 is
the only number below 500 divisible by 3, 4, 5, ? 7 because 3(4)(5)(7)
is 420. 1/3 of 420 plus 1/4 of 420 plus 1/5 of 420 plus
1/7 of 420 is 389.

TopSubj: Math
Prob. - Age Of Father And Son (S390b)
From: Brain Teasers Central on July 14,2004 Source: (Removed from brainteasercentral.com)

The ages of a father and son
add up to 66. The father's age is the son's age reversed. How
old could they be? (3 possible solutions). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Answer

51 and 15, or 42 and 24, or 60
and 06.

TopSubj: Math
Prob. - How Many Ants? (S390)
From: Dan's Problem of the Week on July 14,2004 Source: (Removed from dansmath.com)

At least a dozen ants are marching
through my kitchen! If the ants walk in rows of 7,
11, or 13, there are 2 ants left over, while in rows of 10, there
are 6 left over. What is the smallest number of ants
there could be?

----------------------------------------------------------

Solution: One thing to
notice is that 7 * 11 * 13 = 1001, so the number can be (and must
be) 2 more than a multiple of 1001. This gives 1003, 2004, 3005,
4006. The last one is the first one that's 6 more than a multiple
of 10. Therefore there were 4006 ants (and one uncle, if
you count me!). Andy M's answer:

TopSubj: Math
Prob. - The Spider and the Fly (S389b)
From: Dan's Problem of the Week on July 8,2004 Source: (Removed from dansmath.com)

A spider, in the top-left-front
corner of a 10 x 10 x 10 foot room, sees a big fat fly in
the bottom-right-back corner. Describe the shortest path,
and the length of the path, that the spider can crawl to get
the fly. That's crawl, not jump, fly or spider-web express! Your
explanation must be clear. (Not affiliated with the squished
fly from Problem #2.) ;-}

------------------------------------------------------------

Solution: Think of unfolding
the room and seeing the ceiling and right wall as a 10 x 20
domino. The shortest path is a straight line; the diagonal
of this domino, which is -/(10^2 + 20^2) = -/500 = 10-/5 ft ,
or about 22.36 feet. Answer: 10-/5 ft , which is
22.36 ft to nearest hundredth. Flavio's answer:

Note: This is a simplified version
of a famous problem, in which the room is 12 x 12 x
30 ft, the spider is 1 ft below the ceiling in the middle of
one 12 x 12 ft end wall, and the fly is 1 ft above the floor
in the middle of the opposite end wall. Now what's the
shortest path? There are different ways the story can "unfold"
here!

A man went into a 7-11 store
and chose four items. The clerk calculated the total amount
which came out to $7.11. The cust- omer thought the price was too
high so he asked the clerk how he got that total and the clerk
said he multiplied the prices together to get the total.

The customer asked him to add
the prices together and the clerk came up with the same total
- $7.11. What were the prices of the four items the customer
bought?

Anna, the older twin, was born
three hours before her younger sister Lana. On Lana's
21st birthday, they both went out to a club with some friends.
The bouncer was checking ID's and let Lana go in. But when
the older Anna tried to follow her in, the bouncer said, "I'm sorry,
your 21st birthday isn't for another two days."
How is this possible? Explain fully and correctly to win the contest.

------------------------------------------------------------

Solution: (by Andy and
Aaron Murdock) For this problem, the "impossible
twins" aren't impossible just improbable. They
were both given birth on a boat (or a plane or helicopter, etc, just
anything capable of crossing the international dateline).
Anna, the older twin, was born on March 1 of a non-leap-year
on the Asian side of the International Dateline, three
hours later, after they had crossed to the other side of
the Dateline, Lana was born, the date being February 28.
21 years later, which happens to be a leap-year, they go to
a night club on the 28th of February, Lana's birthday, yet
Anna has to wait two days, the 29th and then the 1st.

Three friends check into a motel
for the night and the clerk tells them the bill is $30,
payable in advance. So, they each pay the clerk $10 and go to
their room. A few minutes later, the clerk realizes he has made
an error and overcharged the trio by $5. He asks the
bellhop to return $5 to the 3 friends who had just checked in.
The bellhop sees this as an opportunity to make $2 as he reasons that
the three friends would have a tough time dividing $5 evenly
among them; so he decides to tell them that the clerk made a mistake
of only $3, giving a dollar back to each of the friends.
He pockets the leftover $2 and goes home for the day!
Now, each of the three friends gets a dollar back, thus they each
paid $9 for the room which is a total of $27 for the night.
We know the bellhop pocketed $2 and adding that to the $27,
you get $29, not $30 which was originally spent. Where did
the other dollar go????

Answer

The facts in this riddle are
clear: There is an initial $30 charge. It should have
been $25, so $5 must be returned and accounted for. $3 is given
to the 3 friends, $2 is kept by the bellhop - there you have
the $5. The trick to this riddle is that the addition and subtraction
are done at the wrong times to misdirect your thinking
- and quite successfully for most. Each of the 3 friends
did indeed pay $9, not $10, and as far as the friends are concerned,
they paid $27 for the night. But we know that
the clerk will tell us that they were charged only $25 and when
you add the $3 returned with the $2 kept by the bellhop,
you come up with $30.

Four members of a band are walking
to a night concert. They decide to take a shortcut, but
must cross a bridge. Luckily they have one flashlight.
Because of the varying size of their instruments, it takes each member
a different amount of time to cross the bridge - it takes
the first person one minute, the second person two minutes, the
third person five minutes and the fourth person ten minutes.
They must cross the bridge in pairs, travelling at the slower
speed so if the one minute person went with the ten minute
person, it would take a total of ten minutes. Since
there is only one flashlight, one person must come back across the bridge,
then another pair can cross. They only have 17 minutes to
cross the bridge and still get to the concert on time. What
order should they cross to get every- one across and get to the concert?

Answer

First, the one minute person
and the two minute person must cross the bridge, for a total of two
minutes. Then the one minute person should come back with
flashlight - total of three minutes. The five minute person and the
ten minute person cross together next, making the total thirteen
minutes. Now the two minute person goes back and (total
now fifteen minutes) and gets the one minute person and they cross
together bringing the total to seventeen minutes.

TopSubj: MATH
PROB. - Two Eggs And A 100 Story Building (S381b)
From: jimmysu on 5/9/2004

You have a 100 story building
and two eggs. These are especially strong eggs.
There is some floor below which the egg will not break if dropped.
What is the worst case upper bound on the number of
drops you must make to determine this floor?

The problem is simple with a
single egg, but gets interesting with two eggs.

Answer backwards- neetruof.
My cousin and I finally solved it. The solution can be
seen by clicking 'HERE'.

TopSubj: MATH
PROB. - Three Eggs And A 1000 Story Building (S387b)
From: jmholmes on 5/9/2004

During the solution of the math
problem "Two Eggs
a 100 Story Building" in Sunday Morning
Laughs #381b, I challenged the readers to the next level
problem:

You have a 1000 story building
and three eggs. These are especially strong eggs.
There is some floor below which the egg will not break if dropped.
What is the worst case upper bound on the number of
drops you must make to determine this floor?

Jack took up the challenge and
you can see his solution to the problem by going to clicking
'HERE'.

Jack went on to make a more general
problem.

How's about this for a slight
twist - at what point can the building size be 10n and the
number of eggs be x+1, and have the total number of drops required
be smaller than for a building of size n with x eggs?

An encyclopedia consists of ten
volumes (sitting next to each other, in order, on a shelf).
Each volume contains one thousand pages. Excluding
the covers of each volume, how many pages are between the
first page of the encyclopedia and the last?

..Solution backwards:Dnasuohtthgie.
When books sit on shelves, the first page of the book is the rightmost
page, and the last page is the leftmost page. So you
can't count the pages in the first and last volumes.

Of those numbers whose English
representation in capital letters consists only of straight
lines, only one number has a value equal to the number
of straight line segments required to write it out. What
number is this?

Answer backwards- ENINYTNEWT

TopSubj: MATH
PROB. - How Many Gloves Must Be Drawn? (S367b)
From: LABLaughs.com on 2/7/2004

Cathy has six pairs of black
gloves and six pairs of brown gloves in her drawer.
In complete darkness, how many gloves must she take from the drawer
in order to be sure to get a pair that match? Think carefully!!

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ANSWER

13. She could possibly take out
6 black left hand gloves and then 6 brown left hand gloves,
the next one would have to be either the right hand
or left hand match.

There is a clothing store in
Bartlesville. The owner has devised his own method of pricing
items. A vest costs $20, socks cost $25, a tie costs
$15 and a blouse costs $30. Using the method, how much would
a pair of underwear cost?

If it takes Alicia 3 hours to
paint a fence, and it takes Mark 6 hours to complete the
same job. How long would it take both of them working together
at their normal paces to complete the same job?

xxxxxScroll down for the answerxxxxxHere it comesxxxxx

ANSWER

Two hours.

Alicia can complete 1/3 of the
job in one hour and Mark can complete 1/6 of the job
in one hour; therefore, together they can complete 1/3
plus 1/6 or 1/2 of the job in one hour. Consequently, the
entire job can be completed in just two hours. Or, you can
figure it by saying (a x b)/(a+b)=time spent.

If you need 4 Gallons of water
from a well and you have a five gallon and a three gallon
bucket, how will you get four gallons?

xxxxxScroll down for the answerxxxxxHere it comesxxxxx

ANSWER

Fill the five, then from the
five fill the three, now empty the three. Fill the three with
the other two gallons. Refill the five then continue filling
the three. You should have four gallons left in the five
when the three is filled.

A man was found murdered on Sunday
morning. His wife immediately called the police. The
police questioned the wife and staff and got these alibis: The Wife said she was sleeping. The Cook was cooking breakfast. The Gardener was picking vegetables. The Maid was getting the mail. The Butler was cleaning the
closet.

The police instantly arrested
the murderer. Who did it and how did they know?

Answer

It was the Maid. She said she
was getting the mail. There is no mail on Sunday! (next day air
and email doesn't count)

In the mystical Land of Writers,
all the natives belonged to one of two races. There
was the Poet's race, who always told the truth, and Story Teller's
race who always lied.

One day, two Writers, Mili
Tary, were crossing the country trying to get home after a tour
of duty in the army. They came to the river Fallon and
signaled the boatman, Joel, on the other side to bring them
across the river.

Joel, a Poet, didn't like Story
Tellers. He had worked eight hours that day bringing travelers
across the Fallon river. It was getting dark and the
wind was starting to blow. Halfway across the river, Joel decides
that he was done for the day, unless they were Poets.

Joel yells to Mili, "What race
are you?" Mili's answer can't be understood because of the
wind.

A second time, Joel yells to
Mili, "What race are you?" Again Mili's answer was muffled by
the wind. Tary can't stand this lack of progress, so he yells
"He said 'He is a Poet'. He is a Poet, and so am I."

Who, if any, did Joel bring across
the river and why?

Answer from Jack They are both poets because: 1: Mili would answer that
he was a Poet regardless of which he was. 2: Therefore Tary must
be a Poet since he told the truth about what
Mili answered.

A large truck is crossing a bridge
1 mile long. The bridge can only hold 14000 lbs, which
is the exact weight of the truck. The truck makes it half
way across the bridge and stops. A bird lands on the truck.
Does the bridge collapse? Give a reason.

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ANSWER

No it does not collapse. Because
it has driven a half mile - you would subtract the gas used
from the total weight of the truck.

1. Key in the first 3 digit of
your phone number into the calculator. NOT
WITH AREA CODE 2. Multiply by 80. 3. Add 1. 4. Multiply by 250. 5. Add the last 4 digit of your
phone number(ex.1234). 6. Add the last 4 digit of your
phone number(ex.1234)again. 7. Subtract 250. 8. Divide by 2.

Is this your phone number??
Can you figure out and explain how the arithmetic works.......